After playing seven of its last eight games away from Jackie Robinson Stadium, UCLA baseball is on the last leg of its road trip.
As the team travels to Utah for a three-game series, it faces more questions than answers possibly for the first time since the preseason.
The biggest question: Can UCLA win a weekend series?
The Bruins (19-15, 7-5 Pac-12) have not won a weekend series since March 23, when they took two out of three games from Washington State. Two of the three series they have lost since have come against sub-.500 teams – Long Beach State and Arizona. In this time, the team has fallen from tied for first in the conference standings to fifth.
However, the Bruins should have a good opportunity to rebound against the last place team in the conference, the Utes (11-21, 2-13).
“To be good in this league, you have to be very resilient. We’ve shown as much resiliency as any team in our conference over the last … eight years,” said coach John Savage. “We have a ton of confidence, we know this league very well and we’ll bounce back.”
Despite Utah possessing a team batting average of .218 and a team earned run averaged of 4.45, Savage called the Utes a very competitive, capable and well-coached team.
“We can’t take them lightly,” senior outfielder Brian Carroll added. “They’re going to give us a good game, so we got to be ready to play them.”
The injury bug has come back to bite the Bruins, calling into question whether Carroll and junior closer David Berg will be able to play in Utah.
Carroll was diagnosed with a bruised rotator cuff, according to College Baseball Daily, after a collision with sophomore outfielder Ty Moore in Sunday’s series finale against Arizona. He is day-to-day and a game-time decision to play this weekend. This likely means that redshirt sophomore Christoph Bono will shift from right field to take Carroll’s spot in center in the event that Carroll cannot play. Freshman Brett Stephens would then be the likely candidate to fill Bono’s spot in right.
“Hopefully we don’t have to go to that situation and hopefully he’ll be fine and back out there by the weekend,” Bono said. “If that’s the case, I’ll be comfortable out there (in center); I played there quite a bit in the fall.”
Berg has a strained right bicep, according to College Baseball Daily, and is also day-to-day. It is still unknown if he will be able to pitch this weekend as he is a game-time decision as well. On Sunday, he initially described the sensation as a “weird feeling” in his bicep, but thought it would be fine. Candidates to close in his stead if he misses any time are likely redshirt junior lefty Max Schuh and redshirt sophomore Jake Ehret.
Other questions that remain are whether the team can find offensive consistency with runners in scoring position and if sophomore pitcher Cody Poteet can get back on track.
In their last ten games, the Bruins are only hitting a measly .237 with RISP, almost 30 percentage points lower than their season average with RISP of .266.
Meanwhile, Poteet has struggled in his last four starts, recording no quality starts and pitching three innings or fewer in three of them.
Yet, despite all of these unanswered questions, the Bruins are still confident that they can turn their play around.
“I have a lot of confidence in this team. We’ve been saying it for awhile and that’s the hard part,” Berg said. “But once we get going, I don’t know if anyone’s gonna stop us. We just gotta hit that stride.”